Pros:

Cons:

Mercilessly destructive, horribly violent, and smash-your-face-into-a-brick-wall-over-and-over-again-until-you-actually-enjoy-it difficult, FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage is a massive overdose of just what the title says: ultimate carnage. It's not racing so much as it's one long demolition derby with a finish line. Truth is, the game also lets you participate in a real demolition derby. And perform some of the wackiest stunts this side of the X Games. Ultimately, FlatOut is a smorgasbord of rock 'em, sock 'em vehicular insanity that, while not without its quirks, will at least temporarily addict anyone with a pulse.

Your adversaries are evil. They want to be first to the checkered flag, sure, but they're also quite content knocking the stuffing out of you. That's the way it is in the FlatOut world, and that's the style you'll need to adopt if you want to succeed. You see, beating down your peers not only makes you feel all warm inside, but it also benefits you in terms of added nitrous oxide boosts. The harder you wallop an opponent, the more nitro you gain, and the more nitro you gain, the better your chances of winning.

But nitro boosts are available elsewhere too -- primarily by crashing into stuff and grabbing huge air time by jumping over other stuff. Apart from typical low-rent environmental hazards such as potholes and puddles and ruts and washouts -- not to mention conveniently placed jump ramps -- you'll contend with bric-a-brac such as traffic cones, loose tires, boxes, patio chairs, bits of indefinable crap, hunks of lumber, little rocks, big boulders, broken-down automobiles, and much more. Feel like taking out some poor schmuck's fence? Go ahead -- it won't slow you down much and it'll only make you faster in the long run.

All of the above is fully displaceable, often flying high in the air as you make impact, or perhaps just bouncing along in front of your bumper for a mile or two. And there isn't just a little wee bit of it either -- there's a ton of it, and it's just about everywhere. In fact, some drivers will feel there's too much of it, that there's no place where they can really get some open road.

But FlatOut doesn't merely pile on the roadside debris -- it also piles on the structures. You'll zip through chicken coops and greenhouses, reducing everything in your path to its base elements. You'll hurtle through service stations, smashing aside gas pumps and triggering massive, completely gratuitous explosions that take over the entire viewing screen. And if you do happen to come up against something that doesn't move, such as an oversized logging truck, a single-wide trailer or perhaps a tree, you might think you'd stop dead in your tracks. And indeed, your car will. But your little virtual driver won't. Instead, he or she will pop tragically from their seat (so much for seatbelts) and crash through the windshield, only to land, broken and mangled, many car lengths down the road.